[Python-Dev] why we have both re.match and re.string?

Hi, I hope the question is not too silly, but why I would like to understand the advantages of having both re.match() and re.search(). Wouldn't be more clear to have just one function with one additional parameters like this: re.search(regexp, text, from_beginning=True|False) ? In this way we prevent, as written in the documentation, people writing ".*" in front of the regexp used with re.match() Thanks.